


Healing heart

by Captain_Susanne



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode: s05e06 Timeless, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 08:26:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19741891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Susanne/pseuds/Captain_Susanne
Summary: Fifteen years after Voyager has crashed on an ice plant, Chakotay and Harry try to change the timeline to rescue their crew and to give Chakotay the chance making the right decision for his life.





	Healing heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternative storyline of the episode "Timeless". The plot was inspired by a cut out scene from the episode as well as Adele´s "Skyfall", especially the atmosphere of the song. It was written for the VAMB Song Challenge 2019.
> 
> Thanks you JoAryn for being my beta :) Without you, this story wouldn´t have been posted. 
> 
> Disclaimer: CBS owns Star Trek Voyager and its characters. No infringement intended.

... _I know deep down in my shipper heart that Chakotay's true reason for going back in Timeless was to save her._

“This is the end. All hands, brace for impact!” Kathryn´s shocked voice echoed over the bridge, followed by some screams. Only a few seconds later, Voyager crashed onto the surface of an ice planet, clipped a mountain and then slammed into the snow over the glacier. The hull dug in as they slid along.

“Nooooooooo!” Chakotay woke up screaming out loud. His shirt was soaked with cold sweat and his whole body trembled lightly. His dark eyes, wide open, were fixed to the wall opposite of his bed. His screaming had woken the woman next to him, who sat up and stroked his back softly.

“Shhhh….Did you dream it again, Chakotay?” came her calm question.

Chakotay nodded without saying a word.

“It was only a dream.” She moved behind his back and soothed the man she loved, caressing his broad chest with her hands.

“No! It wasn´t a dream. It´s reality…they are all dead….she is dead thanks to a wrong phase correction!” His voice sounded louder than he had intended to be. Chakotay freed himself from her embrace and left the bed. Restless, he wandered through the bedroom.

Her eyes watched his wandering for a few seconds before she spoke to him.

“I can´t bear it anymore, seeing you suffer that way almost every night, Chakotay.”

“My pain isn´t comparable to the suffering my former family had felt, Tessa.” Chakotay´s words were a mix of guilt and self-pity whispered into the darkness of the room.

Tessa crawled out of their bed and walked to Chakotay. Once again, she hugged him and this time he didn´t pull himself away. The soothing gesture was a balm to his wounded soul.

“Tomorrow we´ll fly back to the class L planet and this time we find them.” Tessa´s words sounded in his ears too good to be true. How he longed for this day which would hopefully end his soul´s nightmare.

The woman unfastened her grip on Chakotay and stroked his cheek tenderly. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the softness of her hand. In his mind´s eye another woman with auburn hair appeared in front of him doing exactly the same gesture. Chakotay remembered the last night aboard Voyager. The night when he had spent the last time with Kathryn.

Having Kathryn´s face in his sight, Chakotay opened his eyes and looked with a heavy heart at Tessa. Seeing the vulnerability in his eyes, Tessa misinterpreted the sadness as some kind of hopeful wish to change the time and bring his crewmembers back to life.

She bent her head forward placing her cheek on Chakotay´s chest. Hearing his steady heartbeat, she fastened the embrace again telling him with a hushed voice: “And then…we´ll change history.”

***

The next morning Harry Kim arrived punctually at the agreed meeting point. The ravages of time had gnawed on Voyager´s former ensign. Silver strands of hair highlighted his thatch and some wrinkles covered his forehead and mouth.

“Good morning, Harry,” Chakotay welcomed his friend and former subordinate as he entered the Delta Flyer.

“It´ll be a good one if we smooth out the mistake I did.” The fury and grief were audible for everyone in the cockpit.

Chakotay as well as Tessa knew that they shouldn´t comment on his words. Harry had never forgiven himself for the wrong calculation of the phase variance which led to Voyager´s doom. Slapping Harry´s back, Chakotay walked to the helm and took his seat. Tessa followed him and sat down behind the operations station.

“Harry, go to the lab and prepare everything we need later after the landing.” Chakotay´s fingers flew over the helm´s console activating the Flyer´s takeoff while his friend wordlessly left the cockpit.

Two hours later two figures were beamed onto an ice planet wearing thermal suits. They picked their way carefully across the uneven snow-covered surface until Harry´s tricorder beeped. Faint details of Voyager´s hull beneath the ice were identifiable.

“We're here! The glacier fractures are stable,” he said with a steady voice closing his tricorder.

Chakotay took a deep breath and contacted Tessa. “We're clear to beam inside.”

  
“Acknowledged.”

They materialized in a frozen corridor and doffed the hood from their thermal suits.

“Not exactly the way I remember it.” Harry scraped the ice off a near wall display and attached a power supply.

“Power grid's been destroyed. Neural gel packs frozen solid. Decks nine through fourteen are now deck ten. They've been compacted.”

Harry´s saying stopped Chakotay´s heart for a nanosecond imagining the fear his friends and crew must have felt the moment they crashed onto the planet´s surface. 

“Looks like they hit the ice at full impulse. The EMH?” His voice sounded calm but inside Voyager´s former first officer´s body screamed, his heart grief-stricken.

  
“I'm trying to access sickbay. The relays aren't responding. I'm losing the interface. Reset the power cell. Come on!” Frustratedly Harry hit the display with his hand.

  
“Let's get moving. Go to sickbay and activate the Doctor. I´ll try to find Seven on the bridge.”

“Chakotay…” Harry grabbed his friend´s arm and gave him a worried look. His frustration changed to empathy.

“What?”

Chakotay´s reaction sounded harried. Harry hesitated for a moment thinking how to tell him the following words.

“Be aware that you´ll see her there, old friend.”

Harry´s utterance hit Chakotay deeply in his heart and he felt how iciness spread through his body forcing him to shiver lightly.

“Keep an open comm. link,” answered Chakotay without making any reference to Harry´s words. Turning around, he walked to the opposite wall and opened the entrance to a Jeffries tube.

“See you then in sickbay, Harry,” he said and closed the tube´s door.

In the Jeffries tube were still some emergency lighting flickering. On his way to the bridge Chakotay found almost a dozen frozen bodies of his former crewmembers. At the beginning he had struggled with himself if he should take a quick look who had been the poor souls but at the end he resisted and continued his way to the bridge.

Ten minutes later he had arrived the end of the Jeffries tube on deck one which led to the briefing room. Chakotay opened the hatch and entered the room. His look wandered through the empty space. No one of his former crew could be seen, but Chakotay prepared himself for the inevitable.

As he opened the door to the bridge his eyes recognized immediately Tom Paris who lay on the steps near the command chair. Chakotay´s flash lamp wandered over the bridge as a well-known body appeared in the light of the lamp. His heart pounded heavily in his chest as he closed the distance to the frozen, dead body.

Kathryn Janeway lay some meters apart from her helmsman. Her face was covered with ice but her features looked peacefully. She lay there like a sleeping beauty waiting to be kissed awake. Chakotay knelt down and caressed her cheek feeling her cold skin. Tears welled up in his eyes as he watched the woman he loved for so many years.

In the last fifteen years, as his grief had almost overwhelmed and controlled his daily life, his head had often whispered to him “She isn´t coming back”, but at the same time his heart had sobbed “She has to!”. And when Harry had come up with the idea to change the history, his heart as well as his head had done everything to make this dream come true.

Today was the day where this dream seemed to be within reach. If everything went well, the last fifteen years wouldn´t exist in the way he had experienced them. All the sorrow, pain and despair would end and his friends, especially the love of his life, would be back and a part of his life again.

Chakotay pulled his hand away from Kathryn’s face, kissed his fingertips and softly touched her lips. A deep sigh escaped his throat as he stood up and glanced at her a last time before he continued his search for another woman; a woman he needed to change history.

His gaze followed the light of the flashlamp as another body appeared behind the small secondary tactical console. Chakotay knelt next to Seven and called Tessa in the Delta Flyer.

“Chakotay to Tessa.”

“Go ahead,” came her voice over the comm.system.

“I've found her. Lock on to the Transporter relay and beam her to the lab.” Chakotay fixed the small device on Seven´s neck.

“Stand by.” Tessa´s fingers skimmed over the console.

  
“Make it quick. This isn't exactly a happy reunion.”

Tessa listened to his words while she located Seven´s signal. She knew how difficult it was for him seeing his former crew and friends in this kind of state. The sound of his words made it obviously to her. For nine years she was in a relationship with him. After Starfleet had given up their search for Voyager, Chakotay had started to drink. Almost every day he had gone to the little bar near his flat where she had worked temporary as a waitress during her university studies. She had liked him from the first moment she had met him in the bar. And after she had fallen in love with him, she had decided to help Chakotay and Harry to find Voyager.

“I've got a lock.” Tessa pushed the button on the console initiating the transport.

The dead body of the former Borg drone disappeared in front of Chakotay´s eyes. He stood up and left the bridge, heading to sickbay.

Meanwhile, Harry had activated the EMH in sickbay.

“Please state the nature of…” The doctor materialized in front of Harry.

“Long time no see,” came Harry´s sorrowful answer.

“Ensign.” The doctor looked perplexed through the room. His eyes widened as he realized the current state of sickbay.

  
“I go by Harry now. It's a long story. Where's your mobile emitter?” The other man sounded busy and tried to get the EMH´s attention back.

“What's happened to the ship? The crew?” The Doctor was still shocked seeing the mess and the desolate state of his workstation.

  
“No time. The emitter.” Harry´s voice sounded harried.

“It's in here, but…”

“Here. Slap it on. Let's go.”

“Wait! I demand an explanation.” The doctor´s stubbornness drove the former ensign almost crazy. In this moment Chakotay entered sickbay and answered the doctor´s request.

“I'll give you one. We're here to change history.”

***

“Fifteen years?” asked the EMH incredulously.

“Give or take a few weeks.” Harry´s utterance urged the hologram to ask more questions.

“Where are we?”

“In the Takara sector, just outside the Alpha Quadrant.” Chakotay opened his jacket and put away his equipment.

The casualness of his words displeased the Doctor. “The crew?”

“Except for us, dead.” Harry´s message hit the physician hard and he realized that he was, apart from them, the only survivor of this catastrophe. His holographic heart felt pity for all the ones who didn´t survive it.

Seeing the shock in the doctor´s eyes, Chakotay told him what he assumed happened aboard the ship after the slipstream had collapsed and Voyager was thrown into normal space.

“We think Captain Janeway tried to make an emergency landing on this planet. The ship must have been too heavily damaged. They were all killed on impact.”

“They've been buried inside a glacier for the past fifteen years.” Facing the Doctor, Harry took off his thermal boots and changed in another pair of shoes.

“You two were here, on the Delta Flyer, ahead of Voyager. You made it.”

“All the way back to Earth. We got home, Doc, and all it took was killing everyone we cared about.”

“Harry,” hissed Chakotay and felt again the symbolical cold hand grabbing his heart at Harry´s words. Kathryn´s frozen face appeared before his mind´s eyes, tightening the cold hand´s grip.

The Doc noticed the change in Chakotay´s facial expression and closed the distance to him laying his hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture.

“Starfleet certainly took their time finding us,” reassured the EMH.

The mention of his former employer forced Harry to stand up furiously. His abrupt rising attracted the hologram´s attention.

“Starfleet.” The word left despisingly his mouth. “Starfleet gave up their search for Voyager over nine years ago. We had to find you on our own.”

The EMH was disappointed to hear about Starfleet´s indifference and thanked his two former crewmembers for his rescue.

“We're not here to salvage your program. We're here to prevent this disaster from ever happening.”

The Doctor turned his head to Chakotay facing him with a perplexed look. “I don´t understand, Commander?”

Harry rolled his eyes and walked to the two other men. He understood the Doc´s confusion but the time ran through their fingers. They had to hurry if their plan should work.

“You see Doc, fifteen years ago, I miscalculated the Slipstream threshold and transmitted the wrong phase corrections to Voyager. Boom! They were knocked out of the Slipstream and sent to an icy death. Thank you, Ensign Kim.” The sarcasm in his voice was audible even to a deaf-mute. “But I've had a long time to rethink my mistake, and now I know how to fix it. So, we're going to send Voyager a new set of phase corrections.”

“Isn't it a little late for that,” came the unconvinced question from the EMH.

“We've found a way to communicate with Voyager, in the past, just before the accident.” Chakotay pointed with his head to Harry, signalizing him to show their old friend what they had in mind.

“Better late than never,” said Harry and headed to the other side of the room pushing a button on the wall´s display.

“You mean a message back through time?” The hologram looked at the other man with questioning eyes.

“Exactly, Doctor,” nodded Chakotay.

“How?” The Doctor didn´t understand yet. He calculated in his holographic matrix a million ways how they could handle their idea but didn´t get to a conclusion.

Chakotay waved with his hand to his right side where the opened stasis unit revealed a defrosted Seven.

The hologram walked slowly to the stasis unit. He was flabbergasted seeing the young woman he had helped once finding her humanity back.

“I don't understand,” the Doctor said and looked at the two men in disbelief.

Chakotay started to explain him that one of her cranial implants was a transceiver designed to communicate with other drones and that it was called an interplexing beacon. Listening to his explanation, the Doctor began to understand.

Chakotay took a step forward so that he stood directly next to the EMH as he finished his elucidation.

“We want you to extract the beacon and determine its translink frequency.”

“That shouldn't be a problem. She looks reasonably well-preserved,” said the Doctor affirming his utterance with a nod of his head.

Chakotay felt a light feeling of relief, hearing that the first part of their plan could be realizable.

“Good. That'll tell us where to send the message. Now the hard part. We need to know when to send it. Can you access Seven's chronometric node and pinpoint the exact moment her cybernetic implants disengaged from her organic systems?”

“Her time of death?” He furrowed his brow.

“Down to the millisecond, if possible.” Chakotay´s firm tone made it unambiguously clear to the hologram that he shouldn´t ask again.

“I'll see what I can do,” nodded the EMH.

“I told you he'd come in handy.” Harry blinked his eyes and received a perplexed look from the Doctor.

The hologram turned towards Chakotay and asked him what way they´ve found to communicate with Seven in the past. His request forced Harry to bend down taking out a red box.

“Behold. Salvage component three six six nine eight. A Borg temporal transmitter.” Harry opened the box showing their treasure to the EMH.

Chakotay faced the Doctor and explained him where they got it from. “Starfleet Intelligence found it in the wreckage of a Borg cube in the Beta Quadrant.”

“And we stole it,” added Harry and closed the red box.

The whoosh of an opening door stopped the talking between them. The hologram turned around and saw an unfamiliar woman entering the room.

Tessa went to Chakotay, telling him that they were in trouble. “Long range sensors are picking up a Federation vessel.”

“How much time do we have?” Chakotay knew that they had to hurry now if their plan should be successful.

“I entered a low orbit and remodulated our shields, but it won't be long before they find us. Six hours if we're lucky.”

The Doctor watched the dialogue between them and put one and one together. “Let me get this straight. You're fugitives?” He wrinkled his forehead.

Harry turned to the hologram, revealing him the truth. “The Galaxy's most wanted. We stole the Delta Flyer too, right out of a Federation shipyard. We're wanted on two counts of high treason and conspiracy to violate the Temporal Prime Directive.”

  
“Wonderful. Out of the icebox and into the fire.” The irony in the Doctor´s voice annoyed Chakotay. Time was running and they hadn´t finished yet everything they needed for their plan.

“We don't have time for this. Get started,” he ordered the EMH.

“Aye, sir.” Voyager´s medical officer opened his tricorder and started to analyze Seven´s dead body, getting access to her chronometric node.

Seeing the EMH working, Chakotay turned his attention back to Tessa. “We still have to retrieve those sensor logs. Get ready.”

Tessa nodded and walked to the back of the room where the thermal suits hung. She started putting one on as she noticed the Doctor´s gaze on her.

“Hello, Doctor.” She smiled at the puzzled hologram.

“Do I know you?”

“No, but I feel like we're old friends.” The woman closed her thermal jacket as she revealed her identity. “I´m Tessa Omond.”

“Hello,” he said and continued his scans on Seven. He didn´t pay too much attention to the unknown woman.

“It's an honor to finally meet Voyager's infamous EMH.” Her surprising comment stopped his work. Now she had his attention.

  
“Infamous?” Had she really said this? His ego welcomed her words although the moment wasn´t appropriate.

“I've told her a few horror stories.” Harry was working at a display panel. His face looked emotionless but deep inside his mind he recalled some past moments. Moments as the Doctor had shown his ingenuity. Harry remembered the time when he was more dead than alive thanks to Species 8472. The infection, he had gotten during an away mission on the alien bioship, had almost killed him. But the Doctor´s brilliancy had saved his life. He was still thankful for this, more than the Doctor ever knew.

“Actually, they've always spoken very highly of you.” Tessa waved her head in the direction of Chakotay and Harry, who didn´t react to her words.

“Ah ha,” mused the EMH and took another medical device. “And how did you get involved with Bonnie and Clyde here?” The physician pointed with his head to his former crewmembers.

His appellation for her lover and his friend made Tessa smirk.

“Oh, I've had an interest in Voyager for a long time.” Her line of gaze wandered to Chakotay.  
  
“They're having sex,” came Harry´s sudden supplement, letting the Doctor´s features derail.

“Pardon?” He couldn´t believe that he had really said this out loud. Where was the shy Ensign Kim, he had gotten to know?

“Chakotay and Tess. They're a couple, joined at the hip,” explained Harry more detailed.

The facial expression of the Doctor told everyone in the room that he was a little shocked of Harry´s words. But the truth was that the hologram didn´t know what the two men had endured in the last fifteen years. Losing the whole crew because of Harry´s miscalculation had changed them totally. They weren´t the kind, smart Starfleet officers anymore, now they were criminals trying to alter the timeline at all costs.

Tessa ended the lightly embarrassing situation and caught the attention back to her. “The truth is, Doctor, I didn't want Chakotay or Harry to have to face this alone. I thought I could help,” she said with a shrug.

While Harry had explained Tessa´s presence and their relationship to the Doctor, Chakotay had been busy and had taken the whole equipment, they needed for their next step, in his bag. He put the tricorder in his jacket pocket and closed the distance to Tessa asking her if she was ready. Only seconds later they materialized on Voyager´s bridge.

***

The gloomy light of the emergency lighting awaited them on the bridge. Chakotay walked with Tessa to the operations stations.

Tessa´s eyes flew over the antiquated looking panels. “These controls are a little clumsy. I thought you said this ship was state of the art.”

Chakotay´s line of gaze viewed the bridge. His flashlamp wandered over his former working place before he turned to Tessa. Sadness covered still his features although he tried to keep calm.

“It was, at the time.”

Tessa keyed in some orders to the computer system and managed to locate the sensor logs but the computer denied her the access.

Chakotay left her side and moved from the operations station to his old command chair.

“My command codes should still carry some weight.” He keyed in the code and paused for a while as his eyes saw something, he didn´t consider to find.

“Chakotay?” Tessa watched his motionless silhouette.

“Looks like there's an active file here.” The astonishment of his voice echoed over the bridge. Chakotay activated the file and wasn´t prepared for what happened next. Kathryn´s voice sounded through the room. Chakotay´s heartbeat increased immediately. Fifteen years had passed since he had heard her for the last time.

“But should our luck run out, I'd like to say for the record that the crew Voyager acted distinction and valor.”

Hearing her voice his mind drifted back to their last evening aboard the ship. They had celebrated the implementation of the Quantum Slipstream Drive. Everyone had been so excited. Their days in the Delta Quadrant seemed to be numbered. As they had strolled around the warpcore, Kathryn had asked him about his plan for the evening.

_“_ _Dinner plans?” Kathryn whispered and nodded to a few crewmembers who passed their way.  
_

_“Nothing special. Date with a replicator,” he joked and smiled at her.  
_

_Her order cancelling his replicator-date forced his heart to beat faster than normal. He had been so nervous that evening as he had prepared himself for dinner and he couldn´t explain to himself why. Maybe it had been her decision, accepting the new flight plan or cancelling it. Maybe it had been the feeling to know that this night could be their last in the Delta Quadrant. Or maybe it could have been a mix of both, Chakotay hadn´t been sure about it. The only thing he knew was that he would have a nice evening with the woman he loved for years._

_As he entered her quarters, he hadn´t been ready for the situation which awaited him there. The table had been set with candles and white lilies. Soft piano music played in the background._

_Kathryn welcomed him and asked about his appetite._

_“_ _Famished, but I assumed you called me here to talk about the Slipstream flight.” He noticed the PADD in her hand._

_  
“No reason to cancel our dinner plans. I've programmed a dish my grandmother used to make back on Earth. Vegetable biryani.” Kathryn pointed him to take a seat._

_Her beautiful smile warmed his heart as he sat down never leaving her eyes._

_“Sounds delicious. I didn't know you could cook.” He looked astonished at her with a grin on his face._

_She answered his teasing with another lovely smile and explained that tonight was a special occasion._

_This answer surprised him more than her cooking and Chakotay eyed her with a questioning look._

_Kathryn saw the sign of interrogation in his eyes as she poured water into his glass. “Our last night in the Delta Quadrant. I'd say that's special enough,” she said as she took her seat facing Chakotay._

_  
They started to talk about the next day and the slipstream, the chances and risks._

_  
“It could be our only chance to use the Quantum Drive.” Kathryn´s face looked tensely at him._

_Chakotay took the PADD where all data about the Quantum Slipstream Drive could be seen. His eyes skimmed shortly over the data and then back to her. He saw a glimmer of uncertainty in her features and he knew that she was looking for his advice._

_“True, but if you showed this data to any Starfleet engineer, they'd think we were out of our minds. We can find another way home. We've waited this long.” He disabled the PADD´s display and put it on the table._

_  
“Long enough. We've waited long enough. I know it's a risk, probably our biggest one yet, but I'm willing to take it.” Her voice sounded husky forcing her to clear her throat before she continued. “Are you with me?”_

_Chakotay was watching her as a hand reached suddenly over the table into his direction. He grabbed her hand and answered “Always.” His thumb stroked over the back of her hand._

_They watched each other for a few seconds, still holding hands, as Kathryn pulled her hand away, stood up walking around the table and stopped in front of him._

_“We´ve waited long enough, Chakotay,” she whispered and took his hands once more._

_He faced her with an amazed look. Chakotay wasn´t sure if he read her body language correctly or not, but his heart hoped that she was pushing away the parameters they´d set once._

_He rose from his chair, her hands still holding his, and brought them to his lips kissing the back of her hands with gentle kisses._

_Chakotay lifted his head, curious of her reaction to his kisses. Kathryn looked at him with tearful eyes, a smile covered her face as she squeezed his hands and then unfastened the grip. She walked back to her chair, brushing an escaping tear away, and took the ladle._

_“We spoke about risks some minutes ago. Are you ready to try some home cooking?”_

_He sat down and eyed her with a boyish grin. “I'll alert sickbay.”_

As the voicemail ended, Chakotay awoke from his daydream. Again, he felt the cold hand on his heart, this time it crushed it so hard that Chakotay had to touch his chest. The pain was visible on his face.

“You´re okay?” Tessa stood next to Chakotay watching his grief.

He couldn´t face her in this moment. The sorrow seemed to overwhelm him. As the pain in his chest had lowered, he gestured her to take a seat.

“Yes. It's just the last time I was in this chair, they were all here. Alive. And she sat next to me.” Chakotay looked to the empty chair on the right side of him.

Tessa took his left hand and squeezed it tenderly. “We're here to get them back.”

Chakotay was thankful for her encouraging words and nodded at her. Then he asked for the tricorder and put it on the pop-up screen between the two chairs.

“It's downloading. Give it a minute.”

“I don't suppose we have time for a tour.” Tessa´s gaze drifted over the bridge.

“Afraid not.” He shook his head and smiled as he added that he left his quarters a mess.

Chakotay stood up, followed by his lover. He took her hands and eyed her with a serious look. “In just a few hours, if all goes as planned, we'll have changed history. The past fifteen years erased.”

He breathed in deeply before he continued. “We don't have to do this.”

Tessa eyed him with a melancholic look on her face. For a few seconds, she thought how she should continue and if she should tell him her true feelings. The lump in her throat seemed to get bigger and bigger. She took a breath and fixed her eyes on his.

“You know that I love you…” She paused and cleared her throat. “…but I know that you love her more. I´m only a surrogate for you, some kind of pastime, Chakotay. Your heart has always been here, on Voyager. That'll never change. This is where and to whom you belong.” Tessa unfastened the connection to his hands.

“Tessa…” Chakotay tried to touch her but she made a gesture of refusal and walked a step back.

“You don´t have to defend yourself. I know that your heart broke the moment she died.” Tessa faced the sadness in his eyes as she mentioned Kathryn and felt sorry for Chakotay. She closed the distance to him and touched his cheek gently with her palm.

“All these years, I tried to assemble the pieces of your heart but all my efforts were a waste of time. Your heart will always belong to her…” Tessa paused and then added: “…and I have to accept it, Chakotay.”

Chakotay took her into his arms wordlessly holding her for a few seconds. As Tessa released from his hug, she lifted her head and gave him a briefly kiss on his lips.

“Let us bring you back to her.”

***

Back at the Delta Flyer, Chakotay and Tessa had changed their clothes and were back at their stations in the cockpit. Meanwhile Harry and the Doctor were busy analyzing Seven´s cranial implant in the Delta Flyer aft section.

Harry stood at a display panel dictating a message. His activity grabbed the EMH´s attention.

“Mister Kim, your assistance please.”

Harry left the panel and stepped to the stasis unit where some medical devices and a piece of Seven´s cranium lay.

The hologram was analyzing parts of the cranium as his curiousness forced him to ask what Harry´s dictation was about.

“Oh, nothing. Letter to a friend. How's it look?” Harry took the tricorder trying to change the topic.

“No damage to the infrastructure, but I'll need an isoprobe.”

Some seconds elapsed and silence dominated in the room. The longer it took the more the quietness felt uncomfortable for the Doctor, so he decided to break it with a harrumph.

“Is something, Doc?” Harry closed the tricorder knowing that something was on the EMH´s mind.

“Can I ask you something, Ensign?”

“Of course!”

“So what was it like, your homecoming?” The hologram stopped the analysis of Seven´s cranial implant and eyed the man in front of him.

“Antimatter fireworks, long-winded dignitaries, a Vulcan children's choir. Oh, we got medals pinned to our tunics. Chakotay gave a speech commemorating the Voyager crew. Brought a tear to everyone's eye. Admiral McIntyre even wanted me to marry his daughter.”  
His description contained a hint of sarcasm.

The facial features of the EMH darkened a little listening to Harry´s words and he thought how he could encourage him.

  
“At least you weren't buried under twenty meters of ice.”

Harry dropped his gaze as he told the Doctor how many times, he wished he was.

“I suppose it must have been difficult, with all your friends and colleagues left behind.” The Doctor sensed the symbolical burden on Harry´s shoulders which had aged him faster in the EMH´s eyes.

“Survivor guilt. Yeah, I heard a lot about that from the counsellors back at Headquarters. You must learn to accept the fact that you lived. Embrace life, move forward. I signed on at the first deep space vessel I could find. We tried to calculate where Voyager might have fallen out of the slipstream. Four years of searching. We were close, I could feel it! Then Starfleet Command said it was time to end the search. Low probability of success. All those admirals who shook my hand at the homecoming. I went to see every last one of them, begged them to keep the search alive. Pretty soon even Admiral McIntyre stopped returning my calls. So, I resigned from Starfleet.”

Harry´s disappointment of Starfleet was obviously recognizable in his words. Now it was the Doctor´s turn changing to a more pleasant topic.

“For the record, Seven's translink frequency is one zero eight point four four two three six zero zero zero.” He showed the tricorder with the numerical sequence to his counterpart.

Harry eyed the numbers carefully. “Could be our lucky number,” he added and started to encode them.

  
The hologram watched his acting, still feeling that this wasn´t the Harry Kim he had known once. The next question just blustered out of his mouth.

  
“When did you embark on your life of crime?”

Harry lifted his head and was surprised of the Doctor´s question. “The second I heard about this little gem.” He pointed with his hand to the temporal transmitter. Without any other explanation he turned around and headed to another display panel.

The Doctor followed him. He still wasn´t convinced that their plan could be successful. There were too many variables.

  
“Mister Kim, did you ever stop to think about what you're trying to do here? Altering the timeline may make things worse. At least you and Chakotay survived. Why tempt fate?”

Voyager´s former ensign faced the EMH with a firm look in his eyes. “This timeline only exists because I made a mistake fifteen years ago. The crew trusted in me and I let them down.”

The sound of the computer´s voice broke their dialogue. “Tactical alert. Vessel approaching, bearing one eight four mark seven.

  
“Damn!” Harry slapped his hand on the panel and called the cockpit.  
  
“They've found us, Chakotay.”

“I´ve noticed it too. Starfleet's on an intercept course.” came Chakotay´s voice over the comm.system.

“It's now or never, old friend.” Harry shook his head lightly.

“I know! Start with your work. I´ll do my best here.” Chakotay ended communication.

Harry turned his head to the Doctor giving him a serious look. “If you're having doubts, let me know. I'll take your program offline. But if you're with us, we tempt fate together.”

Uncertainty covering the Doctor´s face. “To aid an honorable thief, or to spend eternity in cybernetic oblivion.” In his mind he weighed the two possibilities and made a decision. “Let's tempt fate.”

At the same time Chakotay tried to increase the distance between the Delta Flyer and the Challenger.

“They're gaining on us. Two hundred thousand kilometers and closing. You call these evasive maneuvers?” asked Tessa with a fearful look on her face.

  
“I'm doing my best,” came Chakotay´s alarmed voice as another phaser hit jolted the Delta Flyer. “Harry, status!”

“The Borg transmitter's online but I'm still waiting for the Doctor to give me the temporal coordinates.” Harry worked at the transmitter preparing it for the needed coordinates.

“Just a few more minutes.” The Doc´s facial expression was tensed as he dealt with the last barrier of the cranial implant.

Chakotay heard the rushed voice of the hologram and knew that he was doing his best but their time was limited and all of them had to hurry if their plan should work.

“Speed it up. We've got a Galaxy class starship on our tail.” The worry in Chakotay´s voice sounded through the lab raising the hologram´s as well as Harry´s adrenaline level.

“I'm working as fast as I can.” I´m a doctor not an assembly line worker, he thought as he continued his work.

Chakotay closed the comm.line and focused on his own stuff. His fingers slid over the helm control as a beep sounded through the cockpit.

“They're hailing us. You want to talk to them?” Tessa looked with questioning eyes at Chakotay.

  
“Could buy us some time, Tessa. Open a channel.”

Tessa pushed the button and a well-known dark-skinned man appeared on the monitor.

  
“This is Captain La Forge of the Starship Challenger. You seem to be in quite a hurry.”

  
“You could say that.” Chakotay narrowed his eyes as he faced the man who represented their symbolical mission´s obstacle. 

  
“Why don't you shut down those impulse engines, drop your shields. Let's talk about this face-to-face.” La Forge words were chosen calm and wise. He wanted to end this pursuit without any bloodshed. 

  
“Mind if I take a rain check?”

  
“As a matter of fact, I do. We know what you're about to attempt and we can't let that happen, so the Federation Council is willing to make you an offer. Hand over the Borg transmitter, stand down your vessel, and the charges of conspiracy will be dropped.”

  
Tessa looked over Chakotay´s back and shook her head at La Forge´s words. “That's not much of an offer. If we succeed, those charges will never have existed in the first place.”

  
“If you succeed, countless lives will be affected.” La Forge tried to appeal to Chakotay´s conscience.

  
“We're here to save one hundred and fifty lives. Our crew.” Chakotay´s voice was full of emotions.

“I understand and I might be doing the same thing if I were in your position, but I've got my own crew to protect, not to mention fifteen years of history. So, I'm asking you again. Stand down, and return the transmitter.” The captain of Challenger eyed Chakotay with a piercing glance.

  
“You know I can't do that.” Chakotay shook his head. His eyes were a mix of confidence and fear.

The captain bent forward and spoke with an empathic tone in his voice. “She won´t come back and you know this, Chakotay!”

“She will, Geordie! I´ll make sure.” The conviction in his voice was unmistakable.

“And you know I have to try to stop you.” Captain La Forge eyed him with a warning look.

  
“Yes, I know. But you won´t stop me now. Not after all what I´ve endured in the last years. I´ll succeed in bringing them all back and get her back in my life. But I wish you good luck, Captain.” The firm belief of his plan was written over his face. Geordie La Forge realized that nothing could change Chakotay´s opinion and he had to admit to himself that he understood Voyager´s former first officer totally.

  
“Same to you.”

Chakotay ended the transmission and checked his console. His mind was a mess, but suddenly, in all the chaos, appeared the moment he had seen Kathryn for the last time, the day where he had lost her. They had met in her ready room speaking about the final details of their Quantum Slipstream Drive.

_“The day is here, Chakotay.” Kathryn laid her hand on his chest, a gesture she had done so many times before on their journey. But this time had been different. Her eyes beamed at him with a brightness, he had never seen in all the years in the Delta Quadrant._

_Chakotay´s heart beat fast as he covered her hand with his giving it a light squeeze. Looking into her beautiful blue eyes a wave of anticipation flooded his body. Their journey in the Delta Quadrant would end but not their own journey. Arriving at home would change everything between them. The parameters they had set once for their relationship would vanish and they could finally be together as lovers._

_“Soon everything will be different,” he whispered as he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles gently._

_He didn´t know if the moment was inappropriately but the look in her eyes told him that she felt the same. Her other hand moved up to his cheek caressing it tenderly while they locked their gazes._

_“See you in the Alpha Quadrant, Kathryn!”_

_“I can hardly await it!” A smile covered her face telling him how she longed for a new chapter of their lives too._

  
“They're targeting our engines,” sounded Tessa´s voice through the cockpit, jolting him out of his train of thoughts.

  
“Shields to full. Stand by weapons.”

The Delta Flyer was hit by several phaser fire in the next minutes.

“Shields down to sixty two percent.” A shower of sparks sprayed over Tessa´s head.

“Return fire.” Chakotay tried another evasive maneuver to escape the Challenger´s fire while Tessa fired a photon torpedo.

“Direct hit. No effect on their shields. We're no match for them, Chakotay.” Tessa sounded desperate and shook her head.

“Keep trying,” came his encouraging answer. Chakotay turned his head and gave her a wink as Harry called over the com.

“I don't mean to be a pest, but we're losing power back here!”

“Hold on.” Tessa pushed some buttons and switched to emergency back-up. “Better, Harry?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Harry?” Chakotay didn´t want to interrupt their conversation but something important had just crossed his mind.

“I´m still here. Don´t want to miss all the fun.” Harry´s sarcasm forced the Doctor to roll his eyes.

Chakotay cleared his throat, his eyes were focused and never left the viewscreen as more hits hailed down on the Flyer.

“Harry, did you transmit my message too?” He strained his ears and waited for his companion´s answer.

“I did. Wish us good luck!”

The words smoothed Chakotay´s mind. “Cross your fingers, Harry!”

“You don´t have to say this twice!” Harry closed the comm and faced the EMH with a begging look.

“Doc, I need those temporal coordinates now!”

“Badgering me won't help.” If he would be human, the Doctor´s adrenaline level would have reached already its peak. The certainty that he was the only person who could determine the necessary temporal coordinates for their mission weighed heavily on him.

Two more minutes elapsed. Harry and above all the Doctor were working at the maximum. Both blocked out the concussions of the Delta Flyer.

“I have it.” The EMH´s voice echoed satisfied through the lab. “Her cybernetic systems were terminated on Stardate 52164.3. Borg time index: 9.43852.”

Harry keyed the data in the temporal transmitter. His action was observed by the EMH with questioning eyes.

“You're encoding the transmitter for time index 9.40? That's less than four minutes before Voyager was destroyed! Cutting it a little close, aren't we?”

Harry didn´t looked up to his words. He was totally focused on his work.

“This is no ordinary phone call, Doc. We’re talking to yesterday. Timing is everything. I want to make sure Seven of Nine gets the information at just the right moment.” Harry took another device and keyed the corrections in.

“There. I'm bringing up the new phase corrections. This was where I failed fifteen years ago, Doc. This time will be different.“ He felt confident that he could smooth out his mistake. Harry pushed the last button on the temporal transmitter and…nothing happened.

“We're still here.” Harry lifted his head to the Doctor, his eyes wide. “Why are we still here,” he screamed.

“Mister Kim?” The Doctor eyed him in disbelief. He seemed to be stumped too.

“The new phase corrections didn't work.” Harry turned away his head. His voice sounded tearfully and disappointed. 

  
“Are you certain?”

Harry explained to the EMH that they wouldn’t still be here trying to save them if Voyager had gotten through safely. He paced up and down ruffling his hand through his hair and stopped in front of the temporal transmitter checking its condition.

“The transmitter's functioning. Seven must have received our message. Chakotay, problems,” he called his other companion over the comm.system.

  
“I can see that.” Chakotay was busy keeping the Flyer intact. The battle with the Challenger had the shuttlecraft heavily damaged.

“Our engines are down. They're locking onto us with a tractor beam,” sounded Tessa´s voice from the background.

“Full thrusters,” Chakotay yelled.

“No effect,” she shouted back.

An idea hit his mind. “Do we have enough power to send a plasma surge through their tractor beam, break ourselves free?”

“I think so, but the EPS relays have taken heavy damage. It could destabilize the warp core.”

They were out of options, he knew this. The only chance they had, would cause a warp core breach. But who cared, if the core´s destabilization would gather them some time for another try.

Chakotay left the helm and went to Tessa´s station. He encompassed the panel and bent forward looking into her eyes. “If you want to beam over to that ship, I'll understand.”

“And let you have all the fun? Never!” A smile covered her lips. A smile that told him more than her words did. He always believed that she loved him but now he knew. Chakotay realized that this love for him had been Tessa´s motivation doing whatever she could to make him happy.

Chakotay remembered a time when he had done the same for another person…Kathryn. Thinking of her and their possible future, if the next minutes went right, warmed his heart. He smiled at the woman in front of him and brushed Tessa´s forehead with his lips before he headed back to his seat telling her to initiate the plasma surge.

“Harry, we just bought you a few more minutes.”

  
“Acknowledged.” Harry was still busy in the Flyer´s lab pushing a button here and a button there, thinking what went wrong some minutes ago. The Doctor stood behind him and watched his calculations.

“I'm no time travel expert, but can't we just call Voyager again? The past isn't going anywhere.”

“That's not going to help if we don't know what to tell them. The Slipstream kinetics look right. Hyperdimensional progressions, perfect. Maybe it's the deflector geometry.” Harry left the panel nervously and stepped to another one, keying in some data.

  
Meanwhile Chakotay´s plan had worked and the Delta Flyer was free, but the EPS relays were overloading as expected.

Chakotay called Harry informing him about the possible core breach in less than three minutes and asking him if his part of the plan progressed.

“Great, just great! It took me ten years to make these corrections. I can't fix it in three minutes!” His frustration reached the next level running from one console to another. His face looked desperate, angry tears welled up in his eyes.

“You've got to try,” hissed the EMH behind his back.

“I can't! It's not working.” Voyager´s former ensign left the control panel and moved to the lab´s center, whining like a child. “Why won't it work? I killed them!” His crying got louder.

“Control yourself,” shouted the hologram shocked of Harry´s behavior. The Doctor closed the distance and grabbed his arms turning Harry´s face to him.

“They trusted me, and I killed them!” Harry couldn´t barely look into the Doctor´s eyes. He felt so miserable. In his own eyes he had failed again.

“Mister Kim! I didn't spend all those years in an ice bucket so I could listen to you berate yourself. If you want to wallow in self-pity, fine! Do it on your own time.”

The harsh words of the hologram stopped his crying. Harry lifted his head and received an angry look from the EMH.

“Don't you see? History's repeating itself! I destroyed Voyager once, and I'm doing it again!”

Harry was about to cry again as the Doc fastened his grip and shook his upper body.

“Somebody has got to knuckle down and change history, and that somebody is you.”

Harry shook his head and freed himself from the hologram´s grip, telling him that it couldn´t be done. He leaned against the door cursing himself for another missed chance bringing Voyager home.

Although Mr. Kim appeared being an emotional wreckage, who had given up hope, the EMH was still thinking about all variables. His optronic pathways calculated and assessed within nanoseconds every possible way to rescue the crew. All of a sudden, he had an idea.

  
“No, you told me you can't correct their phase variance. All right, we have to accept that. But what about sending Voyager a warning? Is there a way to get them to abort the Slipstream flight?”

As the Doctor´s words sank into his mind, Harry´s ego got a punch into the right direction.

“Yes.” He turned around grabbing the EMH´s arms, his face now full of hope. “Yes! I could send a phase correction which would disperse the Slipstream entirely.”

Releasing his arms, Harry moved to the console next to the stasis unit and calculated new phase corrections. 

“If we can't get the crew home, at least we can save their lives.” The Doc´s face lit up as he joined Harry, totally pleased that they found another way to save Voyager´s crew.

In the cockpit sounded the computer´s voice by that time. “Warning. Warp core breach in sixty seconds.”

Chakotay looked over his shoulder to Tessa. “Can you eject the core?”

“No. Emergency systems are offline,” came her devastating answer.

Chakotay wanted to say something as Challenger hailed them.

“La Forge to Delta Flyer. Our sensors are reading an overload in your warp matrix. Lower your shields. We'll beam you out of there.”

Tessa left her station, heading to the man she loved, and put one of her hands on his shoulder and the other one on his arm, while Chakotay denied La Forge´s offer and suggested him getting to a safe distance.

“Warning. Warp core breach in forty five seconds.”

Chakotay encompassed Tessa´s hand, giving it a tender squeeze, and called his friend in the lab.

“Harry, now would be a good time.”

Harry and the Doctor were still busy with the corrections. The Doc´s eyes watched the temporal transmitter as something unexpected caught his attention.

“Mister Kim,” he bent forward to the Borg device, his voice covered with shock forcing the other man to squint aside.

“It's losing power.” Harry rushed to the device tapping in some orders, but nothing happened. Angry he slapped with his fist at the desk of the stasis unit. At that point his eyes noticed another energy source, while the computer announced the warp core breach in thirty seconds.

  
“Your emitter. It's got its own power source.” Harry fiddled with a tool at the EMH´s device of the 29th century, trying to separate the hologram´s program from the emitter.

“Will it be enough,” asked the EMH with questioning eyes.

“It's our only chance.” Harry lifted his head looking thankful into the Doc´s face. “Glad you could join us, Doc.”

The EMH eyed him with a broad grin on his face and slapped him friendly on his upper arm.

“It's been a pleasure,” the Doctor said before Harry, with an even broader smile, detached the emitter from his arm and he vanished.

Another warning from the computer echoed through the Delta Flyer. Harry took some deep breaths watching the small device in his hands. He turned to the temporal transmitter and put the emitter under it, using it as some kind of energy source.

“Chakotay, I'm giving this one more try.”

While the computer started the countdown of the last ten seconds, Harry keyed in the final corrections. In the cockpit Tessa had taken the seat next to Chakotay, both were holding hands as the last seconds elapsed.

Tessa fixed her eyes on him, her face covered with fear. “This is the end. Hold your breath and count to ten.”

Chakotay watched the woman, who had given up everything for him and his dreams, and tightened the grip on her hand. No words would ever explain his thankfulness, but Chakotay wanted to tell her something, something to value her bravery and feelings.

“I wish you all the best, Tessa,” he whispered and kissed her gently. As he broke the kiss, he thanked her for her love and support.

With tearful eyes Tessa looked at Chakotay telling how much she loved him. As the last two seconds were announced by the computer, she told him her final wish.

“Promise me, you´ll spend a happy life with her together and...”

Tessa couldn´t end her sentence. A huge explosion shattered the outer space and within a nanosecond the timeline changed.

***

“Captain, I am receiving a transmission.” Seven´s voice rang out dumbfounded over the bridge.

Kathryn Janeway looked over her shoulder with perplexed eyes. “I thought you said the comm. link was down.”

“It is,” announced Tuvok in his typical stoic manner.

Seven turned her head to the captain telling her that the signal was routed through one of her cranial implants and contained a new set of phase corrections.

“Does Harry know how to access your Borg systems?” Kathryn, still puzzled, swung her head from Tuvok back to the former Borg drone, who answered her “No”.

The captain thought a second about it, talking to herself that Harry must have figured out a way. When the awareness had soaked her mind, she ordered Tom Paris to enter the corrections.

Tom´s finger flew over the console keying in the corrections. His eyes widened realizing that something went wrong.

“Captain, the Quantum drive just went offline! We're dropping to impulse.” He turned to Janeway facing her with a thunderstruck look.

Kathryn left her command chair and walked to the center of the bridge, her confused eyes didn´t leave the viewscreen as Tuvok affirmed the loss of the Slipstream.

  
“Delta Flyer to Voyager. What happened,” echoed Harry´s voice over the comm.system.

“You miscalculated, Harry. We entered the exact phase corrections you sent to Seven of Nine. They shut down the Quantum drive.” Kathryn rubbed her forehead. She was a little disappointed that their mission hadn´t been successful.

“Captain, I didn't send any corrections to Seven of Nine,” sounded Harry´s voice in amazement over Voyager´s bridge, forcing his captain to turn her face in the former Borg´s direction.

“She received a message through one of her cranial implants. It wasn't you?”

“No, Ma'am.”

Some hours later Kathryn and all the others had assimilated the failed Slipstream flight, although Kathryn had to admit to herself that _failed_ was the wrong word. Their Slipstream flight may had been brief, but it had taken nearly ten years off their journey. So, at the end she was pleased what they had gotten. It no longer seemed a question of if they get home, but when.

Satisfied, despite everything, she entered the mess hall. It was already late but she was looking for someone. She and the rest of the crew owed their life to him. Harry Kim was working at a desk computer and stood up abruptly, as he had noticed her.

“At ease.” Kathryn gestured him to sit down. “Am I interrupting?”

“No. I just came here to try to figure things out.” His gaze lowered to the display of his computer.

Kathryn had closed the distance to him and looked at his work tool. “Phase corrections.”

“The corrections I sent you were wrong. If you had used them, Voyager would have been heavily damaged, maybe even destroyed,” he said with guilt in his voice. “What I can't figure out is who sent the other phase corrections to Seven of Nine.”

  
“Looks like we've got a guardian angel.”

Kathryn´s utterance forced Harry to look up.

“Oh, I wish I could believe that.” He shook his head, still looking at the data on his computer.

“Believe it. His name is Harry Kim.”

“Captain?” The young ensign lifted his head in disbelief.

“Seven found a Starfleet security code embedded in the transmission. Yours.”

“I'm telling you, I didn't send it.” Again, he shook his head, unable to believe her words.

“Not yet. The transmission had a temporal displacement. We believe it originated from the future. Ten, twenty years from now. We can't be sure.” Kathryn had sat down watching his astonished reaction to her news.

“Wait a second. If I sent a message from the future and changed the past, then that future would no longer exist, right? So, how could I have sent the message in the first place? Am I making any sense?” Harry faced his captain with questioning eyes and thought of his lectures by Admiral Andersson in temporal mechanics. 

  
“My advice in making sense of temporal paradoxes is simple. Don't even try. To me, all that matters is that somewhere, somehow, sometime, you come through for us. And if you won't take it from me, take it from you.” Kathryn handed the tricorder to Harry, her eyes full of empathy for his situation.

“Seven found a log entry encoded in the telemetry. From Harry Kim, to Harry Kim.” Kathryn stood up giving him an encouraging smile and left the mess hall.

Outside, on the corridor, she sighed and pulled another little device out of her pants pocket. Harry had been one person, she had to inform about the messages, Seven had found. Kathryn walked to the turbolift watching the PADD inside her hand.

“Deck three,” she ordered and listened to the hum of the lift.

Voyager´s captain mused about the second message. Seven had told her about the content of Harry´s transmission, but she hadn't informed her about the other one. Kathryn thought of all possibilities that the transmission could contain, and curiosity grew inside her.

The lift´s door opened and she stepped to the third door of the corridor. Kathryn reflected some seconds, thinking about the way she should tell him the news. Before she could ponder over it any longer, destiny had made its decision and Chakotay came around the corner, wondering why his captain stood outside his quarters.

“Kathryn?”

“I´m sorry, Chakotay. Hope I’m not interrupting?”

“No,” he said, keyed in his entrance code and pointed her to come in.

“Do you want something to drink? Coffee maybe?” Chakotay wandered to his replicator, waiting for her answer.

“After this exciting day I think my body needs something to calm down. An herbal tea would be better.” Kathryn had entered his quarters and stood in the middle of his living room unsure what to do.

“Two herbal teas,” he ordered and took the two mugs after they had materialized.

Chakotay walked to his couch putting down the beverages and gestured Kathryn to join him.

As she sat down, he handed her the hot mug and asked why she visited him so late.

“Seven found two Starfleet security codes embedded in the transmission. One belonged to Harry and the other one…” She paused taking the beverage and blowing on the hot liquid to cool it down. Kathryn took a sip and then added: “..to you!”

“Me?” Chakotay gave her a surprised look.

Kathryn put the mug back on the coffee table and reached for the PADD.

“Seven has analyzed Harry´s message which was hidden in the transmission. We found out that he had miscalculated the phase corrections causing all our deaths, except you both.”

Chakotay´s eyes widen, hearing what had happened in the other timeline. He grabbed the PADD and started the other hidden message.

“Hello Chakotay. I can imagine your face now. But believe me this is no trick or joke. I´m real!” Voyager´s first officer watched his older self in disbelief, tilted his head then to Kathryn, who was still looking at the man on the display, and swallowed the lump down in his throat before he turned his attention back to the message. The color of the man´s hair as well as the wrinkles around his eyes told Chakotay that his other self must be at least sixty years old. He shook his head incredulously and continued listening to the man´s words.

“The last fifteen years I lived in despair thinking about the big loss I had to deal with. However, if you´re watching this transmission now, that means all of that has changed.” The older Chakotay lowered his gaze and breathed in. His younger self could sense the grief, he must feel in his heart.

“I know the hope you carry inside your soul.” The future Chakotay looked up with a sentimental gaze. “The truth is, Chakotay, don´t wait any longer. Tell her how you feel. I waited too long in my timeline, but you…you have the chance to make it right. I know that you are thinking that your feelings can probably be suppressed for the next years. But what if your time together is limited? What if you never reach home? Don´t throw your love away for a future that maybe never will come!”

Chakotay, still listening to his older self´s message with fixed eyes, sensed that Kathryn had left his side and walked to the window next to the couch.

“Promise me, you´ll admit your love to Kathryn!” The display went black and Chakotay could hear yet the begging tone in his older self´s voice. The last words had sent goosebumps down Chakotay´s whole body. With trembling hands, he put the PADD on the coffee table, unsure what he should say or do now.

Seconds elapsed where no word was spoken. Kathryn stood wordlessly at the window, her gaze orientated towards the moving stars, her mind far away.

Suddenly she felt his presence behind her and in the reflection of the window she could see his inquiring look. His warm breath tickled her ear and Kathryn felt a mix of various sensations rushing through her body.

“I´m tired, Chakotay.” Kathryn´s voice echoed with an exhausted tone through the room. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before she continued.

“I´m so tired of pushing you away.” Her utterance forced his heart to skip a beat.

“Then stop it.” His words were barely audible but full of emotions.

Kathryn turned around and faced him with tear-dimmed eyes. Raising her hand, she brushed a single tear away, before it could escape her eye, and cleared her throat.

“I was so full of hope that the Slipstream flight would lead us not only home but also…” Kathryn paused giving her heart the permission saying the words, she carried since weeks inside her.

“…to a happy life together, where the burden is gone and I could be ready for a life with you, Chakotay.”

Her confession washed over him like a warm summer rain after a long heat wave. Chakotay felt his blood rushing through his ears and was unable to answer her.

For a long moment, Kathryn looked deep into his eyes, a mirror to his soul reflecting all his feelings for her. Her heart beat faster and inside her body, like a domino effect, collapsed the wall of parameters piece by piece. She cupped his cheek and tilted her head forwards. Closing her eyes, her lips captured his mouth. Chakotay´s body responded immediately to her unexpected action and wrapped his arms around her, deepening the kiss.

Inside her heart, Kathryn made a decision. The almost unsuccessful Slipstream flight had been the catalyst making her realize that she couldn´t bear a life without him anymore.

She opened her lids slowly, as Chakotay had ended the kiss. He watched her with beaming eyes, while he held her steady and stroked her back with his hand.

“I love you, Kathryn…I loved you in the past…I love you here and now and I´ll love you in the future. There is no time frame where I didn´t love you.” Her answering smile together with her shining eyes sent a peaceful warmth through his heart. He pulled her closer to him and kissed her again.

In that moment a new chapter of their lives started, where Starfleet regulations didn´t dictate their way of living anymore. Their journey in the Delta Quadrant went on as well as their own new journey.


End file.
